And, I mean... you can't exactly fight very well before defeating the Warlord, because that's what unlocks training with Bradley, which is the source of like 90% of your combat power. Unless something else unlocked it and they just happened to coincide in my playthrough?
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Yeaaaaah, well, I did have to restart a portion but I just made it to Harmonia, so all's well that ends well :') If anyone sees this and sits in the same boat as me: do the missions in order and don't go to random places lol
I haven't found a better way than training with Bradley yet, so can't confirm there's anything else before that!
Might also depend how you're planning to play. I went with lustful sub, which makes the game objectively more difficult, but does also mean you can skip 90% of combats if you don't care about getting experience.
When I started, I didn't initially realize combats are supposed to give experience since lust submit -- which is all I was doing -- doesn't give any, so all my experience was from missions until I was forced to do actual combat. It's entirely possible lack of experience was most of the reason I couldn't do much combat-wise. (It also meant I kept savescumming the pirate base to 100% avoid combat because I was unaware that you don't get sent back to the start if you win the combat.)